Familiar selection ceremony
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Familiar Selection Ceremony

His eyes were strange…

It was a sudden feeling.  As when one is asleep on their feet, hanging on with everything they’ve got until they walk into a familiar room and suddenly all the strength in their body drops away.  You’ll find them draped over the bed - or worse, the floor - and dead to the world.

I’m not sure whether sleep was actually involved, but I ended up getting the best of both of these feelings.  The sense of passing through a physical doorway, the sense of the rug being pulled.  The sense of dread and responsibility.  If you held a fire to my face, I’d wager my expression wouldn’t be all that different.

I ‘appeared’ in the dark.  On a pitch black circle, smooth as lacquer.  I suppose if there was anything but darkness in the sky, that it would bear their reflection.  I saw neither myself nor my shadow in it.

On the horizon, on a stage, I saw a star.  A small sun.  Unlike the latter, it was not unpleasant to look at.  Despite the dark, the scene did not fade.  My eyes did not adjust.  The fire moved, and I recognized a head, two arms and two legs.

I couldn’t place the change.  I looked around and found others.  Other stars.  Red.  Blue.  Brown.  Green.  Black - clear as day.  The more I looked the more I saw until my eyes could take no more.  They fluttered closed and I took a deep steadying breath.

I sound.  My eyes flashed open, and cut to one of the red stars.  My gaze bailed as my ears took over.  The former instead goes to work, measuring the distances between them.  The sound is pleasant too.

The sun gestures and tempts my wayward senses, and my gaze reluctantly changes.  Moving purposefully from one glowing set of toes to the next, occasionally swapping to pierce as deep into the darkness as possible.

My eyes swim, warning me away from looking too much.  I take another breath and focus on the fire.  The warmth within.  The after images burned into my eyes blend and fade.  Strange.  They looked so pretty…

Something caught my eye.  I turned to look, but felt no light.  A shape had formed.  Beautiful, familiar, humane.  That shape cradled my wayward thoughts; satisfied my curiosity; cured my heartache.

I felt moved.  Then it moved and I felt enchanted.  I mimed what I saw and felt, and reflected on what they showed me.  At a glance, it felt like a lifetime had come and gone.  I wanted more, or rather, I wanted everything that they had to give.

---

His eyes were strange.

Many who came before him were distracted.  Some were paranoid.  Some were reserved.  In the end, it didn’t change much.  The souls would choose their familiar and be reborn.  The spirits would watch, and that was enough for them.  A few would call out and be called out, and they would see that the bounds were set.

At first he seemed shy, looking away when spoken too.  His gaze however was sharp and bright.  Moving with care and purpose despite finding nothing.  He would turn his back on those who spoke often, and hem in with his gaze those who had been shaken recently.

This was not normal.  The souls of the world were established as allies, the crux through which the spirits could maintain balance between themselves.  The souls in turn would grow in power and knowledge, and the world would prosper as a result.

Somehow the boy turned that on its ear.

The spirit had a dance of sorts.  When a shadow fell to one, another would pick up the torch and lay a path for the soul to follow.  They would compliment each other, and the weave of destiny would appear.  The proudest moments caused that weave to resonate, and the space would be filled with thoughts like music.

The boy laid these designs bare.  Abandoned and exposed.  Whether he heard them at all had been in question since the very beginning.  Just when they thought that backwards could be a kind of progress, his essence would shift and the proverbial ‘square one’ would evaporate.

It continued like this for some time, until eventually the boy stopped moving.  To an outsider, it might seem as though he was lost in thought.  Gazing out into the dark.  The spirits saw things differently.

The boy’s spark had emerged.  Normally, this would only happen when a soul formed an accord with the spirits, towards the end of the encounter.  It was then that a spirit was elected to become their familiar.  Their patron and asset would glow much more vibrantly as the soul departed to the next life.

This spark was alone.

“I chose you.”

A shiver passed through the red-orange sun, as harsh whispers crossed the space.  Something moved.  One of them answered.  From where eluded them.  An unknown power in their midst, absolute as the soul struck his accord.  Chaos rocked the chamber, and the ember sun threw their arm out, warding the panic away.  Through the shattered glass, they glimpsed a light in the child’s eye.  In the tears of a weary heart, a silhouette lined with blue looked over them all.

Something alien and yet familiar.  But the memory was lost underneath.  The plane stabilized, shattering in reverse.  The boy and his essence; gone.

---

One by one, elementals emerged and approached the summit.  Fire from the fractures in the ground.  Water from the sea.  Dust from the clouds.  Thunder roared across the slopes, and rain pelted them as they came.  Their combined power rippled about the mountain veins.

Each announced themselves with a burst from their origin.  All but one, who spoke in echoes.  Dirt clumsily fumbled along the slope, as moonlight raved above it.  Ripples spread from the fallen rain, and lighting whispered into nook and cranny

This one… It’s different…

The amalgam turned.  A light flared, and I was momentarily back in that room.  My focus drained.  My senses faltered.  Gave everything I had to reach out.  That beautiful sun vanished beneath the shards, but I felt a pressure build and coil within my arm.

Through darkness, stormy clouds and shallow waters, I let that pressure anchor me.  A bounty on my furthest reach.  As moonlit waters became web strewn wilderness, I awakened.

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